


Step One

by Aithilin



Series: The Six Step Programme [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Flirting, Friendship, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes and Jim Moriarty don't flirt like ordinary people. They use their Game to send messages-- to draw and chase each other. Only they aren't quite sure which one of them wants to get caught.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Step One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a long one. It's a case fic that focuses on how the Game is the basis and foundation for Sherlock's relationship with Moriarty. It's a slow burn, with a very set layout that should span about 30-36 cases and crimes. 
> 
> Feedback will be very much welcomed.

The notes usually appeared twice a month. Flirtatious things tucked away in a weekly correspondence column, or set into an inch of paid space in Sherlock’s favourite morning paper. Some were more direct— delivered by a well-paid runner nicked from the Homeless Network, or painted in a place of prominence along the routes Sherlock liked to wander through his city. Some were slipped through with the daily post and spared the knife on the mantle when Sherlock caught them. During a quiet period— a lull between cases and experiments— the notes arrived in a greater frequency, hidden from the ordinary people who walked past them on the streets or skimmed over the words in the papers. 

They came with no stated expectation of response, and no demands for attention. They arrived without context— posted to the blogs and papers with no outside reference to ground them in a solid timeline that Sherlock could have mapped out. He saved each one he found— the clippings and printouts, photos of the ones found painted on alley walls or mixed in with the noise of graffiti— pinned it to the wall in his bedroom before he recognized that there was no pattern to them. He saved a box for them, placed them carefully with notes of the week, in the hopes that he might find the single piece he needed to unravel a threat or promise. He noted the terms of endearment used. Noted variations in voice and style— sometimes hindered by the space and price of a portion of newspaper, sometimes long-winded letters reminiscing events that never happened, once a poor sonnet butchered into three languages on the brick face of a restaurant down the street. 

It was late summer before he thought to reply. 

He chose his words carefully, meant to test the waters to this sort of conversation. He acknowledged the other notes, picked a point of reference to show that he had followed the trail so far— the harder ones to find, or the ones that anyone else could have missed. His response was open to direct reply. A three line note handed off to his Network with the assurance of a reward when it reached the right hands. 

The reply— two weeks later, hidden in a sliver of space beneath a stalling story about suspected arson in a local dance studio— was the first direct invitation he could find in the whole stack of his collected letters. 

By the time John got home that day, Sherlock had three weeks’ worth of papers spread across the living room— all cut to pieces to salvage a particular story that he had previously passed off as dull. The detective was stood on the coffee table, a file in his hand, pen balanced on his lips in place of a cigarette, already in a nervous fidget as details were laid bare before him. The timeline of the suspected arson pinned to the wall was spaced with gaps that grew larger and longer as the story lost the support and interest of London’s reporters. 

“Sherlock? What the hell is this?” John kicked at the mutilated newsprint as he crossed the room to take the file held out on offer. “Did you take a case?”

“Possible insurance fraud. Just clearing that up.”

“You think the arson thing is connected?” The file was thick— a long history of a London dancer filing reports and claims for everything from water damage from rains and bad plumbing, to threats against sanctioned contractors for shoddy wiring. “They’re completely across town from each other.” 

“They’re connected, John.”

“How.”

“I’m working on it.” 

Sherlock stepped from the table to the sofa, and pulled a thin strip of newsprint that had been pinned above the whole mess of the story off the wall. With a final examination of it, he smiled and hopped off the furniture. “We’ve an appointment to see Dimmock in the morning.”

Before he could register John’s protests about work and schedules, Sherlock left him to the mess of papers in the living room. In his own room, the notes had been pulled out and re-examined, spread across his bed as he searched for any repetition that might prove the response in the day’s paper had been a fluke or fraud— repeated from something else or removed from the context he had connected it with. Satisfied that the tiny, single line of print he held now was genuine, and connected to the case it had been placed next to, Sherlock studied it again. 

_I want to take you dancing, my dear. ~Jimmy_


End file.
